Star Trek: First Contact (1996)
Directed by Jonathan Frakes
No — Star Trek: First Contact is not woke, scoring 11 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
Star Trek: First Contact arrives from 1996, a year when the franchise's habit of assembling a multiracial bridge crew was old enough to feel like furniture.
Consciousness Markers
The cast is notably diverse for 1996 — LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, and Alfre Woodard in a substantial role — but this is Star Trek's long-standing naturalistic casting tradition rather than modern representation casting with commentary attached.
Lily Sloane is a capable, assertive woman who challenges Picard, and Gates McFadden publicly framed the film as women finally on par with the men, but the film advances no feminist thesis.
Picard's Ahab-inflected obsession and the crew's moral debates provide some speechifying, but the film is predominantly an action-thriller rather than a sermon.
A multiracial bridge crew exists without comment, consistent with franchise norms, but the film engages in no racial consciousness or commentary.
Zefram Cochrane is depicted as a cynical opportunist who built the Phoenix for financial gain, and the film treats this pragmatism with affection rather than critique — hardly an eat-the-rich parable.
No LGBTQ+ characters, themes, or subtext of any kind appear in the film.
No environmental or climate themes whatsoever; the plot concerns time travel and cybernetic assimilation.
No body positivity themes or messaging present.
Data's longing to be human is a franchise staple about artificial life, not a depiction of neurodivergence as a social identity.
The time-travel plot alters a fictional future history, but this is science-fiction plotting, not revisionist reframing of real historical narratives.
Why it received this score
Star Trek: First Contact arrives from 1996, a year when the franchise's habit of assembling a multiracial bridge crew was old enough to feel like furniture. LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, and Alfre Woodard occupy substantial screen time, and nobody in the film remarks on it. That is the point, and also the ceiling. The picture practices an easygoing inclusiveness it inherited from television, and it attaches no argument to the practice. There is no thesis here, only a cast that looks like the future because the future was designed that way decades earlier.
Alfre Woodard's Lily Sloane is the closest thing to a statement. She is competent, frightened, and willing to tell a starship captain that he has lost his mind, which she does with admirable economy. Gates McFadden gave interviews suggesting the women had finally reached parity with the men, and within the film's own terms she is not wrong. Yet the movie never builds anything from this. James Cromwell's Zefram Cochrane, meanwhile, built humanity's first warp ship for money, and the film regards his mercenary streak with warm amusement instead of judgment. Brent Spiner's Data wants to feel human skin, a desire about artificial life and personhood, not about any social identity we would recognize today.
The speechifying is intermittent. Picard rages like a man chasing a white whale, Worf suggests scuttling the ship, and Lily talks the captain down from his obsession, all of which gives the middle act a moral pulse. The pulse is faint. This is an action picture with a horror movie's pacing, and its arguments are resolved by photon torpedoes and a ruptured coolant tank. First Contact is a well-built entertainment from a franchise that had already said its piece about diversity and saw no reason to say it again.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Part of
Synopsis
The Borg, a relentless race of cyborgs, are on a direct course for Earth. Violating orders to stay away from the battle, Captain Picard and the crew of the newly-commissioned USS Enterprise E pursue the Borg back in time to prevent the invaders from changing Federation history and assimilating the galaxy.
Questions about Star Trek: First Contact
Is Star Trek: First Contact woke?
No — Star Trek: First Contact is not woke, scoring 11 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Ultra Based.
Does Star Trek: First Contact have any woke elements?
1 of the 10 markers register at 30 or above, led by Representation Casting (30). On Representation Casting: The cast is notably diverse for 1996 — LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, and Alfre Woodard in a substantial role — but this is Star Trek's long-standing naturalistic casting tradition rather than modern representation casting with commentary attached.
How does Star Trek: First Contact compare to other 1996 movies?
It ranks #33 of the 93 films from 1996 we've scored; their average is 11. The wokest is Bound (60).
Is Star Trek: First Contact the most woke Star Trek: The Next Generation movie?
No. It ranks #3 of the 4 Star Trek: The Next Generation films we've scored; the wokest is Star Trek: Insurrection (27).